Humans engage in sexual activity for various reasons as propagated by various people who subscribe to different schools of thought. It is therefore imperative to understand beforehand the fact that sexual desire and sexual activity is an activity that any human being with all humanly characteristics can engage in for various reasons. Some of the reasons given are outrageous but some are also very reasonable. This point back to the behaviors, thoughts as well as feelings that are attached to any sexual activity as will be seen bellow.
The psychoanalyst approach tries to bring up some explanations as to why humans engage in sex. Their main argument is that the unconscious is the force behind some actions including sex (Tiefer 2004). This is so because sex is part of the few things that are not available to a person’s awareness. Sex therefore originates from the unconscious. The reason behind this they say is because humans cannot bear to look at them comfortably because of the memories or feelings that come with it. The human consciousness is also structured in such a way that one cannot comfortably want to be associated with the sexual act consciously and whichever way humans view and value them, they always find themselves going back to them willingly but with their unconscious mind.
The sociologists argue that humans engage in sexual activity simply because of the attitudes that they attach to sex. This encompasses practices that different societies hold as morally acceptable because what is good for a given society may not necessarily be good to another society (Thorne 1993). The sociologists therefore think that if an individual thinks that a sexual activity is geared towards an outcome that they are directly interested in then they can go on and engage in it. Different people have different reasons as to why they may want to get involved and this is what will prompt them to go ahead with any sexual action. The sociologist point of view therefore tends to rely so much on morally acceptable issues and their claim is that, that is where the reason why humans engage in sexual activities is drawn from, with of course sexual feelings taking an upper hand.
It is therefore imperative to note that it does not matter which school of thought one subscribes to but the bottom line is that people engage in sexual activities for different reasons. The reason does really matter because whereas some people may want to “do it” for pleasure, others may only want to get involved simply because they get sexually attracted to each other their sexes notwithstanding.
References
Masters, W.H., Johnson, V.E., & Kolodny, R.C. (1982). Human sexuality. Boston: Little Brown.
Thorne, B. (1993). Gender play: Girls and boys in school. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Tiefer, L. (2004). Sex is not a natural act and other essays (2nd ed.). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
